Suggested improvements for the Finnish Baby Box

There’s a moment every year where the Internet collectively goes nuts over these Finnish baby boxes. To be fair, they’re really cool. They come with all sorts of things new parents need: clothing, nail files, diapers, bathing products, and, to top it all off, there’s a mattress at the bottom of the box, turning it into the first crib of 95% of Finnish babies.
Finland’s baby box is great and practical, but I think my ideal baby box would have a little more fun involved.

Tuxedos for babies

The Finnish baby box already has style–everyone wants to see what’s inside this year’s baby box, which basically means its the September Issue of Finnish baby fashion. I know basically nothing about style, but I do know that all of my female friends love toddlers in tuxedos.
I say we should take it one step further: state-provided tuxedos for all children, male or female, born in the U.S.
Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want this to be our mandatory baby costume.

Rubber ducky

Finland gives new mothers some great bathtime accessories: towels, nail scissors, a hair brush. But it’s lacking the rubber ducky, quite possibly the most important bathtime toy. After a few weeks of boring sponge baths, your baby is going to be ready to turn bathtime into playtime, and nothing says playtime like a rubber duck:

Ernie’s love for the rubber duck is so infectious, you may even find yourself taking a bath with it!

A 529 college savings account

This is one of the best ways to save money for your child’s college education, and the biggest tragedy is that not a lot of parents know about it. What makes these accounts so great? You put in after-tax dollars, the account grows tax-free, and it remains tax-free if it's spent on tuition.
529 college savings accounts are administered by states, but you don’t have to live in a state to take advantage of their 529 plan. Read more cool tricks you can do with 529 college savings accounts.

A piece of the Berlin Wall

The Game of Thrones novels

Alright, so your baby is probably a little young to start worrying about the tragic misadventures of the Stark family, but this is more of a gift for you, anyway. Baby keeping you up at night? No worries–attempting to keep your eyes open to read a thousand page fantasy novel at three in the morning will exhaust you into a dreamless sleep. (Alternative scenario: you’re so entertained that you don’t even mind that you have to wake up. More time to read!)
Best part is, the series probably won’t be finished until your kid is a teenager, so they can grow up with the Starks!

Life insurance (for you, not the baby)

Having a baby is one of those life events that make people go, "Oh, crap, someone relies on me for absolutely everything!" It’s a daunting proposition, and it’s one of those things that keeps parents up all night.
A life insurance policy (and Game of Thrones) can help you get some shut-eye. It basically guarantees that if anything terrible happens to you (again, see Game of Thrones), your family is protected. And by protected, we mean with money.
I suggest you check out our guide to learn more about life insurance–we have a ton of resources for you to look through. And if you’re ready to get a quote, we can help you with that, too.

A mech suit

This could go horribly wrong, but don’t you think it would be cool to outfit every baby with a mechanical suit of armor? It has a lot of utility–using just the power of their minds, they can get their own bottle, heat it up with a few lasers, and feed themselves. Admittedly, this is a ways off, but if there’s one country that can do it, it’s the United States of Google’s Massive Research Department.

What’s in your baby box?

What does your ideal baby box look like? Let us know in the comments below.

Adam Cecil writes for PolicyGenius, a digital insurance brokerage trying to make sense of insurance for consumers. You can read more of his writing on his site.

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